Validation: Meet the New Boss

On the ICOC/ICC Delphi discussion forum, I read an interesting thread involving three current ICOC members, all of which have been with the organization from at least the 1990's.

The first, who initially quotes a former member:

"The [Boston Church of Christ] will not change until all the old leaders are either gone or die off. Sorry to be so blunt.

If you read in Exodus, the LORD had the nation of Israel wander 40 years so that everyone died off and only the new generation could ever see the promised land. God forgives, but he takes righteousness very seriously. Even Moses himself was not allowed to witness the land that God had promised to Abraham and his descendants"

you know...i had this same conversation with a couple of folks about the ICOC on the whole.

This was followed by the second current member:

That's funny - I've had the same conversation, too. Though I see the occasional young evangelist who thinks the old days must have been great and it makes me very sad...

And this was followed by the third:

Me too, actually! I have had MANY of these conversations in the last 10 years, and a few very recently. I've said here before, but the ICOC as a whole will not collectively grow or get collectively healthier while the current leadership paradigm exists. And the current old boy club ain't given up control! Heck, Steve Johnson is on the evangelist committee thingie. And too many of the young leaders aren't being taught differently, either. I don't see it changing fellowship-wide at all.

We won't get fooled again.

Declaration of War

In an article on the City of Angels (Los Angeles) International Christian Church's web site posted on April 15, 2012 entitled Degrees of Lukewarmness, ICC founder and top leader Kip McKean concludes the article with this paragraph:

My heartfelt plea is for disciples anywhere and everywhere - whether in the Mainline Churches of Christ, conservative Christian Churches, the International Churches of Christ, those who have drifted into denominational churches, or even fall-aways: Let the Spirit gather us together as one in God's new movement. Let us be unified by being "consumed with [a fiery, hot] zeal for our Father's house" (John 2:17) and "loving one another deeply from the heart." (1 Peter 1:22) Then and only then, will we become "a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God" distinct from the world and worldly churches with various degrees of lukewarmness. (1 Peter 2:9) And to God be all the glory!

It's obvious that McKean himself is the locus of unity for this call to those outside of his current movement. It's his false gospel, his methods, and submission to his leadership or nothing at all, even to those who may be "true disciples" in his view in these other churches. McKean has called out the "remnant" before in the 1980's and does so again with not only the mainline Churches of Christ, (Independent) Christian Churches in the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement, and other "denominational" churches, but also his former fellowship - the International Churches of Christ. With his new movement at 1,500 members as of early 2012 and with plans to plant (or replant) congregations in San Francisco, Orlando, Paris, Mexico City, and Boston late this summer, nothing is in McKean's way to impede his progress. Kip has declared war on not only the churches that have clearly rejected him (namely the Churches of Christ and the ICOC), but has resumed a full-scale assault against historic, healthy, mainstream Christianity.

The United States wasn't fully prepared for war when Pearl Harbor was attacked in December of 1941. In a similar fashion, the groups Kip has specifically targeted don't appear to be ready either - and some of them are in some sort of weakened state:

• The International Churches of Christ, almost a decade after removing McKean from leadership, is still attempting to take his false gospel (see the previous blog post) and methodologies and re-brand it as their very own without McKean. In the various factions, the same doctrines are still taught, but almost none of them require the same call of commitment as McKean requires. The ICOC remains in serious danger of being run down and run over by McKean's new movement, particularly with those who have grown up and have been brought into the movement in the past decade.
• The Churches of Christ are having a growth and identity crisis of their own. The Churches of Christ are shrinking numerically, especially those bent towards legalism. (Remember that the ICOC arose from these legalistic congregations and the ICC split from the ICOC.) As conservative and progressive elements continue to determine the future of that wing of the Stone-Campbell Movement, few are paying attention to both the ICC and ICOC.
• The Christian Churches, at most a very minor player in the history of the Boston Movement and ICOC up until McKean's departure in 2003, may be blindsided by both the ICC and the ICOC because of their contemporary styles of worship and outward evangelical stances on certain positions. In fact, on the surface, one may not be able to distinguish a Christian Church congregation from an ICOC or ICC congregation.
• The other Protestant denominations and fellowships, Roman Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox have largely ignored the problems the Discipling Movement have created the past four decades because of its negligible impact on overall mainstream Christianity. The only Christian and para-church organizations that have even paid attention are those working in apologetic and anti-cult ministries and campus ministries.

In the International Christian Churches Good News E-mail from April 15, 2012, one person from the mainline Churches of Christ has been baptized into the new movement, one was "restored" into the new movement, and several others have joined from the ICOC - the former fellowship. Kip McKean's intentions to pull as many followers as he can into his new movement from churched backgrounds (if you can call an ICOC member "churched") are clear and are currently paying off. My hope is that these other healthy denominations and fellowships warn their members of this new menace and continue to preach and teach the true gospel of grace to Christians within their ranks and let the Holy Spirit do His work to convert the lost in addition to the Church doing their part as the hands and feet of Jesus.

Over Eight Years Later: Signs of ICOC Reversion, Part 1

Three articles posted on the primary news site for the International Churches of Christ, Disciples Today, are an ominous sign that over eight years after the reforms spurred on by the events surrounding Kip McKean's departure and Henry Kriete Letter, that the status quo is returning to classic positions the movement has had since the 1970's.

The first article is entitled Confessions of a Kingdom Kid at Harvard, written by Joseph Porter (posted 1/7/2011), a self-professed "Kingdom Kid" (who was born and raised in the church). In fact, his parents "both... served in Boston's campus ministry back in the day".

What are Joseph's confessions?

"I was a prideful coward. I was terrified of inviting strangers to Bible discussion groups or other events, and I did everything I could to avoid actually talking to strangers..."

His sin was not anything in the realm of sexual immorality, drunkenness, use of illegal drugs, cheating and cutting corners in his school work, but inviting enough people out to church! He repented of this sin, not by reading the Word of God (there still isn't a verse in there that says "thou shalt evangelize everyone at all times of the day and night") and not by a conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit (John 16:8), but by submission to discipling.

"Eventually - about two years in to my career as a college disciple - I learned my lesson. I learned that it was laughably foolish for me to think that I knew how to evangelize my campus better than my campus ministers..."

It's a given that any leaders of a campus ministry would have more experience than the students they're leading. However, what we see in this case is submission to discipling by the leaders. "Soul Talks", now known as "Bible Talks", were a new innovation in the late 1960's during the start of the Crossroads Campus Ministry Movement days in Gainesville, Florida. Were they "laughably foolish" by breaking the then norms? Of course not. These delivered results: conversions. And Joseph wasn't making disciples at the rate that both himself and his leadership expected him to.

Joseph finishes with a description of his commitment to the church:

"Of course, being a disciple on campus is a full-time job. I have to use my time wisely; meals are often combined with Bible studies, and many evenings are devoted to midweek services, Bible talks, Friday devotionals, d-groups, and the like. I've learned to limit the time I spend on Facebook and playing video games. I don't always get as much sleep as I'd like; I wake up at around seven on Saturday mornings for Saturday Academy, and not much later for church on Sunday. But I love what I'm doing nevertheless."

With this example, he's been "given the opportunity to serve as an intern in Boston's campus ministry". He's also repeating the time and resource consuming requirements of being a disciple, a Christian, a saved person - as the ICOC has clearly defined it in the past. A total commitment not to Jesus, but to the church and its ideology. Joseph's reflection of the ICOC ideology is shown here:

"I knew that campus ministry was the heart and soul of the ICOC, and I wanted to turn my campus upside down when I arrived there."

The concept of the importance of the campus ministry, not only to himself as a campus student, but to the survival of the church as a whole, has been deeply embedded into him, literally since birth! Also his unconditional submission to discipling and what the leaders above him say and what he says to the people he personally disciples. And not to mention the total commitment to even put the church above his studies, particularly challenging studies at an Ivy-League institution! Sadly, Joseph and other Kingdom Kids like him have likely never learned to put Jesus in the center of their lives and had all of their activities - church, school, family, leisure, and even sleep - centered around the crucified Christ and guided and empowered by the Holy Spirit to keep the balance.

Two more commentaries about the remaining two articles will follow.

Discipling Fails to Fix Racial Issues in Atlanta

Another failure of the authoritarian discipling system the International Churches of Christ use has been exposed. From a recent post on the well-known ICOC Delphi Discussion Forum, a current member discloses that there are deep racial divides among the individual ICOC churches in the Atlanta metropolitan area. (The following quote is verbatim from the forum post.)

"Needless to say, all the churches handled it their own way. was unique but I can't say any better because of the results being quite fractured. And after it split up, the results varied from church to church in the different locations in the city. Some groups are deeply wounded and many in these groups won't have anything to do with the others. Some are almost all racially one color because of their location in the city being all black.

We also had a hidden racial issue in the church that surprised a lot of leadership. But, hey, this is !

A fragile shift toward unity is growing here but on a much more respectful and peer related level...not authoritarian. It will take a long time because many people are still very sensitive."

The Atlanta Church of Christ was reconstructed in 1986 from a Church of Christ with a Crossroads Campus Ministry. It was lead by Sam Laing who is currently leading the ICOC church in nearby Athens (and was a key player in converting and training Kip McKean at the University of Florida in the early 1970's). After the fallout of the Henry Kriete Letter of 2003, the Atlanta church decided to formally split into separate churches based on geographical regions. For almost eighteen years, it grew into a church of thousands and practiced and preached Kip McKean's authoritarian discipling model and was sold to both its members and potential recruits as a foolproof way to provide a structure for spiritual growth and maturity and numerical growth.

Atlanta, like most other cities in the Southern United States, has had to deal with the specters of slavery and racism for hundreds of years. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's showed that the city and its people were far from reconciling and resolving this issue. Blacks and whites could still live tougher civilly though, but the unspoken undercurrent of the past still remained.

Enter the ICOC with its racially diverse churches. This was and still continues to be one of its best attractions to outsiders. Some ICOC leaders, like Daryl Reed, Lead Minister of the District of Columbia Regional Christian Church in Washington, D.C. are espousing their insights about how to pull diverse groups of people together in the church and get them to work together as a family. (In fact, Daryl has been chosen to speak at the 2010 North American Christian Convention, sponsored by the Christian Church branch of the Restoration Movement!)

So why is there disunity between the Atlanta congregations now? It has been clearly shown that the discipling methods the ICOC has used in the past and continues to use are authoritarian and force each member and each congregation in the group to conform to the norms of the leader. (An excellent description of this in action is the book The Discipling Dilemma.) In the past, it has been Kip McKean. Currently there is no one clear leader of the ICOC. Each church claims to be autonomous. However, there is an emerging body of leaders over the churches that choose to be part of the so-called "Cooperation Churches". Several of the churches in Atlanta are part of this group (Athens Church of Christ, North River Church of Christ, Atlanta Metropolitan Christian Church, and Atlanta Church of Christ in Gwinnett), but many aren't (Greater Atlanta Church of Christ, North River Church of Christ, Cornerstone Church, Marietta Christian Church, and the Northview Church of Christ). With the same forced unity that is pushed by the authoritarian discipling system, it's not surprising to see that major issues among the people in the formerly unified Atlanta Church of Christ, and not just only racial ones, were glossed over for the good of the stability and growth of the group.

Sadly, the solution these churches use to solve their problem is more discipling from an outside authority. In a report from the ICOC Cooperation Churches entitled Elders Service Team Addresses Crucial Shepherding Issues, the problem with the Atlanta Cooperation Churches is mentioned:

"In Atlanta a mediation team of Bruce Williams, John Causey and Wyndham Shaw was asked to assist in resolving issues between 5 cooperating congregations."

(Note: there are only four churches listed as Cooperation Churches in the list linked above.)

Bruce Williams is the Lead Evangelist of the Los Angeles Church of Christ, still the largest ICOC congregation. Wyndham Shaw is an elder in the Boston Church of Christ. Both men have been part of the ICOC going back to the 1980's and have held high level positions in both the era during and after Kip McKean was leading the movement. A recent quote from Shaw is troubling when it comes to the belief that the ICOC without Kip McKean is more open-minded (emphasis mine):

"You know, love for the truth without heart for God and people is legalism. We do have to watch that. We can get so caught up in knowing every scripture and proof text of every issue that's out there in the cultural, philosophical, and religious world - the urban legends - that we become arrogant. We become self-righteous. That we think knowing the truth will save us, rather than loving the source of truth, Jesus - and what he has taught us to set us free. Let's don't become legalists, church. Let's don't become people that are arrogant because we think we're better than others.

On the other hand, do not let anyone shut you up, back you up, or keep you from standing up for what you know the truth is that people need to hear. You see, that's the extreme I'm afraid we got to. 'Oh, well, you we're a little overzealous about who you thought was saved and lost.' Let me say something: the religious world is still just as lost if they do not get the truth of discipleship, of baptism for the forgiveness of sins, by immersion as an adult, as they ever were! We may not be the only ones that hold that conviction, and that's true! And where we find people, we should embrace that, but we can not change the width of the gate or the narrowness of the road that leads to eternal life."

Wyndham Shaw, Elder/Evangelist - Boston Church of Christ (sermon delivered at the Worcester County Church of Christ) - "Love of the Truth" - March 28, 2010 - [42:28-43:55]

It's clear that in Shaw's mind that the only way to unify is through "the truth of discipleship" coupled with the "right" baptism.

In addition, how could the leaders not know that racial issues permeated their congregation? For one, sins of racism were likely confessed by converts and that information was passed up the discipling hierarchy to the top leadership. Secondly, if the leaders had winning Atlanta for Christ in mind instead of building up their own kingdom, they would have known about the culture and city's history, so expecting racial tensions should be near if not on top of the list of concerns that the church had to deal with as it was growing in the 1980's and 1990's.

Ultimately, the intervention by these powerful and influential leaders outside of Atlanta will just put duct tape and a fresh coat of paint on the same problems that have existed for almost the last quarter century. Since the ICOC only has the proverbial hammer of discipling, every problem looks like a nail. And the only solution is to bang away until objects sticking out of the wood have either been driven into it or pulled out and tossed away. The sad part is that almost eight years after the Henry Kriete Letter, Atlanta and the other ICOC churches haven't bothered to dig into the tool chest, particularly reevaluating the driving forces of the First Principles studies, incorporating the role of the Holy Spirit into the individual disciples' lives, and seeking help from the outside to dissolve the sticky tar pit trap of authoritarian discipling and legalism that traps them all.

The Replanting of Boston

Kip McKean has thrown down another major gauntlet to his old ICOC. In his Good News for October 31,2010, he mentions the planting of a new church in the United States in 2011. The target? Boston!

"Coltin & Mandee Rohn will be sent from LA to plant a sister church in Boston, Massachusetts. They will be accompanied by a shepherding couple from LA and ten disciples from New York City, and be discipled by the Smellies in New York City."

This planned planting has deep implications. First, it's setting up a "sold-out" church in the same city where the "Boston Movement" got its name. This is where Kip ceased from being a campus minister in charge of a campus ministry to a lead minister in a church. Later on, he was appointed the World Missions Evangelist in the ICOC. (He currently holds the same title in the ICC.) There will be two churches in the same city: the original Boston Church of Christ and now a new "Boston International Christian Church" (the name is to be determined). Long-time members of the Boston Church of Christ will now have an alternative church in their city fighting for their attention. Second, the Boston Church of Christ is known for a lot of long-time leaders and members who have been completely entrenched in McKeanism and its doctrines. Many specific doctrines of McKeanism have sprouted in Boston, including discipling for every member, "Christian = Disciple = Saved", and "disciple's baptism" (among others). The new church planting may start to draw significant numbers or at least curiosity from "old timers" from the heyday in the 1980's. Third, Boston is still a major metropolitan area with many influential college campuses. It stands to reason that many of these campuses that have banned the Boston Church of Christ will allow the new "sold-out" church on their campuses - but likely only for a short time. Time will tell what will happen, although planting a new church in Boston will certainly raise some eyebrows in the ICOC churches in New England and perhaps in the entire movement.

The couple chosen to lead the new Boston church planting, Coltin and Mandee Rohn, were converted into the International Christian Churches directly at the City of Angels ICC in Los Angles. Not much is known about them, but a video of Coltin (and special guest Mike Patterson) has been found online. (Coltin is sitting next to the cameraman and Mike is sitting diagonally across the table.) Remember that this is the man who will be fully trained and chosen to assume Kip's mighty spiritual mantle in Boston once more.